AUROCH: "Mute Books" Out this Week

As Profound Lore Records prepares to issue the monolithic third album by Vancouver's death metal elite, AUROCH, with Mute Books this week, the entire record is now streaming in its entirety at Noisey, alongside an interview with the band.

Enveloping shadows of ominous death metal chaos loom with AUROCH's Mute Books, which reveals itself as the band's darkest, most brutal, complex, and musically virulent release to date. Carrying the innovative Canadian death metal tradition laid down by the likes of early-1990s records by Gorguts, Cryptopsy and Kataklysm, and more recently through the likes of Mitochondrion and Chthe'ilist, the songwriting on Mute Books reaches a new plateau in technicality and over-the-top dynamics along with a new achievement in production and sound. AUROCH has cast their most ferocious undertaking yet; one of the darkest, most violent, whirlwind-like bizarre monuments of alchemic death metal of the year. Recorded at Raincity Recorders (Baptists, Japandroids, White Lung), Mute Books was mixed and mastered byArthur Rizk (Prurient, Inquisition, Pissgrave, Black Twilight Circle, Power Trip). The album's expansive cover art was handled by Cold Poison Design, each format of the album showcasing different aspects of the artwork.

Together with an interrogation of AUROCH's Sebastian Montesi, Noisey now presents the entire Mute Books for public streaming days ahead of its release, offering, "the album upends any assumption that technical death metal must invariably be boring or masturbatory, and instead uses that instrumental prowess and a strong personal commitment to spiritual evolution to strengthen their truly innovative songwriting."

Comprised of vocalist/guitarist Sebastian Montesi (bassist/vocalist of Mitochondrion), vocalist/bassist Shawn Haché (vocalist/guitarist of Mitochondrion), and drummer Zack Chandler, AUROCH has slowly but steadily been gaining recognition from the international scene since their release of their 2012-released debut LP, From Forgotten Worlds, but it was their 2014-issued Taman Shud LP and the touring subsequent to its release that really began to showcase the band as one of Canada's most active death metal bands. Since then the death metal power-trio has been active on the live circuit consistently, through playing various shows, tours and festivals in the US and Canada, including a recent US tour and an appearance at this year's Maryland Deathfest, and a European tour under their belt likewise with appearances at such festivals as Killtown and Incubate).